veal stock

I don't mean to keep harping on about Gordon Blue, as BB calls it, but the longer I'm back from Paris the more I realise how much I learnt there. I am no longer intimidated by pastry, I can deftly fillet any fish you care to slap me in the belly with, bone fowl, turn vegetables and make pretentious swirls of ketchup round a crisp sandwich.

One thing I had yet to tackle was veal stock.

In the past I'd been put off by words like "simmer for 12 hours", assuming that if it took that long to cook then it must be time-consuming for the cook. But at Gordon Blue we were taught how to make a decent brown veal stock in under four hours -  so it seemed rude not to try.

I ordered 3 kilos of veal bones from my butcher, wildly guessing that they would cost me no more than €10, but when I went to collect them four days later, he said: That will be one hundred euros please Madame.

One. Hundred. Euros.

There was a split second (after I regained consciousness) where one half of my brain said: What the ....? while the other half was reaching for my wallet - the half that appreciates the value of veal stock, no matter what the price. But then he gave me a wink, pushed his pencil stub behind his ear with the two remaining stubby fingers on his right hand and said: Just kidding. For you,  gratuit.

Well, I left that butcher's with a melon-slice smile splitting my face, feeling - absurdly - doubly lucky (if you can work that one out). If there's one price we like in these parts it's gratuit, and factoring in veg from my garden, it was looking like a very good price indeed for some delicious velvety home-made veal stock.

Back at home, I tipped all the bones into two lightly oiled baking trays, mixed through some tomato paste and left them to roast in the oven until browned. While the bones were roasting I peeled and roughly chopped 2 carrots, 2 onions and a celery stalk and roasted these in another oiled baking tray until evenly browned and caramelized. Then I threw everything into my biggest stock pot, covered with 5 litres of cold water, added some sprigs of thyme, a couple of bay leaves and a few whole black peppercorns and left to simmer for three and a half hours, skimming from time to time.

So far, so on course for my 4-hour cheap veal stock.

But I hadn't reckoned on that most extreme of kitchen sports - straining.

The recipe instructed me to do this as many times as I could stand (up?) and I was disappointed, given my diligent skimming, to see thick legs of grease running down the sides of the empty pot after my first straining manoeuvre. I washed the pot (using industrial quantities of washing-up liquid to dissolve the fat) and repeated the process eight times, cursing the still lardy pot - which by this time was nearly running out the door - and the diminishing returns of my precious liquid. At this point I gave up and decided just to bag the damn stuff and be damned, divided what was left (precious little!) into poly bags and went to put them in the freezer...

... when, whoosh, the bottom of one of the bags split open and the contents splattered all over the floor and down the kitchen units.

So, to summarize. The cost (in terms of money and time) of 4 eggcupfuls of home-made veal stock:

Cost (euros)
€0.00 - veal bones
€0.00 - veg
€0.20 - tomato paste
€2.30 - washing-up liquid
€0.50 - 1 roll kitchen paper (mopping-up purposes)
€150.00 - emergency plumber (to unblock the sink because BB was away in Italy sourcing floor tiles)

Total: €153.00

Cost (time)
30 mins - roasting bones and veg
3 hrs 30 - cooking time and skimming
2 hrs - straining and washing up
30 mins - washing kitchen floor
2 hrs - attempting to unblock kitchen sink
4 hrs - waiting for emergency plumber

Total: 12 hrs 30

Veal stock. Don't try this at home!

yippee

All my badgering of friends, family and you, my readers, paid off because my vegetarian Scotch egg recipe has been voted a winner in the Foodista cookbook competition and will feature in the Foodista Best of Blogs Cookbook.

You can read reviews and/or pre-order a copy from Amazon here. It's out on 19 October 2010.

A huge thanks to everyone who voted.

Coming soon: How not to make veal stock.

spicy pomelo salad

I started writing this post on 14th July, when we were going through a mini heatwave, when the average daily temperature was 36 degrees. And it's now past 15th August, the end of summer according to the Savoyards, because the temperature always noticeably drops after this date. Already I'm reminiscing about red fruit stains on picnic linen and sausages sizzling on the BBQ and swimming capers in the lake - and my favourite Ray-Ban sunglasses, now lying on the lake bottom, seeing and seeing while the fish slip past.

We ate a lot of this spicy pomelo salad when it was hot. The pomelo is similar to a grapefruit but bigger, with a thicker skin and a milder sweeter taste. If you can't find pomelos, use pink grapefruit instead. A lovely refreshing summer salad.

Ingredients

1 large pomelo

2 tbsp vegetable oil

2 shallots, finely sliced

2 garlic cloves, finely sliced

1 or 2 small red chillies, seeded and chopped

3 spring onions, finely sliced

3 tbsp chopped peanuts

2 tbsp lime juice

1 tbsp fish sauce

1 tsp sugar

fresh coriander leaves to garnish

1. Peel the pomelo and separate into segments, removing the membrane. Break each segment into 3 or 4 pieces.

2. Heat the oil in a wok and fry the shallots and garlic until golden brown and crispy and drain on kitchen paper.

3. Mix the lime juice, fish sauce and sugar and pour over all the other ingredients which have been gently mixed together. Garnish with fresh coriander leaves.

curry magic

 

From sublime Joël Robuchon recipes to the ridiculous: curry that looks like fish food in a poly bag.

But I have to share this with you because it's the best curry, outside India, that I've ever tasted - and I'm a bit of a curry aficionado. I would estimate that 80% of non home-cooked meals (restaurants and take-aways) I had when I lived in Scotland were curries. An ex-boyfriend (and fellow aficionado) and I would scour Edinburgh for the wettest curry - because a curry has to be wet, you see.

Sadly, every curry I've had since I've been in France (including Paris, disappointingly) has been revolting: dry cloying sauces tasting predominantly of curry paste from a jar, kicking to death any other flavour threatening to make itself known. There's been nothing fresh or fragrant about any of them. The worst was in Méribel, where the chicken pieces had been coated in a torrid desiccated paste then heated in the oven. 

So imagine my joy when this little bag arrived (from my Aunt Hils) and it turned out to be so good.

At first glance the contents look like wood shavings and bark and other detritus swept up off the forest floor, but when you add water and cook for five minutes, some strange kind of alchemy takes place and you're left with the most amazing wet curry sauce, to which you simply add your meat/fish of choice. It's made by a company called Curry Magic - and they deliver to France.

I'm going to decorate the kitchen with flock wallpaper and pictures of the Taj Mahal that light up and play sitar music - so it will just be like sitting in my favourite Indian restaurant in Scotland.

fine food

I've been getting a lot of stick about the crisp sandwich and the burgers. After all my banging on about "Cordon Bleu this" and "Cordon Bleu that", you expected more from me.

So I give you ... 

langoustes en fines ravioles.

I bet they don't serve these down your local chippy.

This is based on a Joël Robuchon recipe from his book Robuchon Facile - and it really is easy, yet could conceivably feature on the menu of one of his Michelin starred restaurants.

The ravioli are made with layers of paper-thin slices of blanched turnip, their strong peppery flavour perfectly balancing the sweetness of the langoustines and the red pepper sauce. One to impress your dinner party guests with.

To make the ravioli sandwiches

Slice a small turnip very finely using a mandolin and cut into circles (about 7 cm) using a pastry cutter. Blanche the turnip slices in boiling salted water for 15 seconds, refresh in cold water and pat dry with kitchen roll. On top of 2 turnip discs, place 2 or 3 cooked langoustines, some very finely sliced fresh ginger and a flat parsley leaf and top with another disc of turnip. Stack a ravioli sandwich on top of another and serve with red pepper sauce.

Red pepper sauce

50 g onions

100 g red pepper

15 g fresh ginger

½ garlic clove, crushed with the flat side of a knife

45 g butter
pinch of paprika

100 cl fish stock

11 cl crème fraîche

salt and pepper

1. Peel and finely chop the onions. Peel the red pepper, remove the seeds and cut into big chunks. Peel and finely slice the ginger.

2. Melt 30 g of butter in a pan and add the garlic and onions and sweat for a couple of minutes. Add the paprika, salt and pepper, ginger, red pepper and fish stock and cook on a low heat for 20 minutes.

3. Add the crème fraîche and set aside for 5 minutes then add 15 g of chilled butter and sieve.

earthquakes, pillow talk and the great American burger

We had an earthquake here today. I was working on my laptop after lunch when the whole house started shaking and making shifting sounds, as if someone was moving furniture around. I thought I'd imagined it but when I checked on the Centre Sismologique Euro-Méditerranéen website, it was mentioned as having a magnitude of 4.2. Not exactly a force majeure, I grant you, but disconcerting none the less.

In Savoie, new builds and renovations have to be constructed to zone 2 seismic standards, or "elastically", to quote BB tonight, and regretting it instantly, I asked him what that meant:

"Do you understand the difference between elastic deformation and plastic deformation (here we go). Take an elastic band and a plastic ring pack on a pack of beer (I'm not listening. Look! I've got my hands over my ears and I'm humming loudly. La la la la).  If you pull the elastic band, bla bla bla ..."

After the miserable wet start to the summer, we're into our fourth consecutive week of glorious BBQ weather and my recipe de l'été is this, from Jamie Oliver: great American burgers. The pre-cooked translucent red onions keep them moist and the addition of breadcrumbs and parmesan stops them from shrivelling up to half their size the way most home-made burgers do. An absolute must for the barbie season.

Ingredients
olive oil
2 medium red onions, peeled and finely chopped
breadcrumbs from 4 slices of bread, crusts removed
500g (1lb 2oz) good-quality lean minced beef
1tsp sea salt
1 heaped tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 large egg, preferably free-range or organic, beaten
handful of freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1. Fry the onions in some olive oil until softened (about 10 minutes) and leave to cool.

2. Put the cooled onions into a large bowl with the rest of the burger ingredients. Use clean hands to mix everything together really well, then divide into 6 equal balls for burgers and 18 equal balls for smaller sliders. Roll into burger-shaped patties about 2cm thick.

3. Cook on a BBQ or in a griddle pan - about 3-4 minutes each side.

quick message part 2

That was a pretty feeble re-entry into the blogosphere, I know. About as impressive as a dull thud. But I just needed to get the ball rolling again. And talking of balls: I've been glued to Wimbledon, but I have a small window of opportunity before Federer v Bozoljac, so here goes.

I got back from Paris after three months away and BB looked as if he'd been dining on dry crusts, he was so thin. I had omitted to leave instructions on what to do when the frozen dinners run out! So what tasty Cordon Bleu repast do you suppose I whipped up for him? Sea scallop carpaccio with cauliflower cream and Imperial caviar? Herb-encrusted breast of plover with a red wine and elderberry reduction? Blue lobster stew with sage, caramelized onions and young leeks?

Nope. A crisp sandwich.

What you do is: take yesterday's bread, spread it with some unsalted butter and sprinkle on a packet of salt and vinegar crisps which you've bashed up with a rolling pin. Oh, the irony!